Surrealism and the Reimagining of Race Studies in America, 1960-Present

Public lecture by Abigail Susik, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Willamette University.

The 1990s saw an explosion in Critical whiteness Studies in the United States, with major publications by David Roediger, Theodore W. Allen, Noel Ignatiev, and others. However, it is rarely acknowledged that intimately tied to this prominent academic discourse was the activist community surrounding the journal Race Traitor (1993-2005), with its intransigent slogan, “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” Throughout its twelve-year run, the Race Traitor editorial board and masthead featured many of the key contributors to Critical Race and whiteness Studies, including Robin D. G. Kelley, even while its uncompromising theory of whiteness abolitionism was grounded in a unique combination of American New Left and surrealist radicalism. This lecture analyzes this surprising and fraught collaboration between American race traitors and surrealists during the rise of a Critical whiteness Studies discourse in the USA.

Bio

Abigail Susik is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Willamette University (Oregon, USA) and Joint Series Editor of Bloomsbury’s Transnational Surrealism imprint. 

Susik has published numerous scholarly and prizewinning books and volumes, including: Surrealism and Animation: Transnational Connections, 1920-Present (Bloomsbury, 2025), Surrealism, Bugs Bunny, and the Blues: Selected Writings on Popular Culture by Franklin Rosemont, 1965-2008 (PM Press, 2025), Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance (Penn State UP, 2022), Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work (Manchester UP, 2021), and Surrealism and Film After 1945: Absolutely Modern Mysteries (Manchester UP, 2021). She is Vice President of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism (ISSS), and her new book on surrealism and anti-racism is forthcoming from Verso Books in 2027. She is also working on a book of interviews with artist/activist Ben Morea, which is forthcoming from Common Notions in 2026.